Hoaxed player dragged into Citizens United fight

Manti Te'o's hoax girlfriend is the butt of Internet gags and numerous jokes, so why not make it the point of a group pushing for campaign-finance reform.

Manti Te’o’s hoax girlfriend is the butt of Internet gags and numerous jokes, so why not make it the point of a group pushing for campaign-finance reform.

On the anniversary last week of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the group Move to Amend cited the former Notre Dame football star’s quandary last week.The ruling paved the way for the glut of outside money pouring into political campaigns.

Greg Coleridge decried the attention devoted to the “catfish relationship of an online, supposedly hoax of a person who was relating to another person that didn’t even exist.” Then he added, “The media has jumped on that, meanwhile the ultimate Moby-Dick … of a hoax is that we have defined corporations as persons.”

Coleridge spoke to about 20 people during a press conference last week. Later, about 30 people marched to the Ohio Statehouse with signs and a megaphone to spread their message.

Ryan Clark is a fellow in Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau.

ryanclark@dispatch.com

@ryangclark

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